Do-it-yourselfers Dislike Plumbing Most, Poll Shows

September 26, 1987|By Clarence Petersen , Chicago Tribune

The Dremel division of Skil Corp., which makes power tools, has polled 1,009 Americans on which household tasks they hate the most, have made the biggest mess of and wish they could do themselves. The winner was plumbing.

Countless householders with children know from experience that to extract a Popsicle stick from the inner recesses of a toilet bowl takes a professional 15 minutes to the amateur's five hours.

Big do-it-yourself plumbing jobs -- those that entail rerouting water lines -- never take less than a day and always include a night without water.

The reason for both is the inevitable discovery, after stores close, that an essential part is missing. Your neighbor never has one; so he gives you a bucket of water for flushing instead.

Researchers were surprised that 41 percent of respondents said they never had messed up a do-it-yourself project, a Dremel spokesman said.

One reason for that is suggested by the survey's statistics: 50 percent of respondents said they usually have professionals do the work. Nothing ventured, nothing messed up. It does not seem unlikely the remaining 9 percent chose to forget their foul-ups.

Six in 10 males but fewer than 4 in 10 females said they are do-it- yourselfers. Many more said they wish they were -- especially women, and more especially the wives of men who only think they are do-it-yourselfers.

Paradoxically, the hated plumbing was high on the list of jobs ''Americans are most likely to look back on as something they wish they could have done themselves.''

Among those Americans, no doubt, is the brain surgeon who complained to his plumber about a huge bill for fixing a kitchen sink.

''This is outrageous,'' the doctor said. ''I only charge half that much, and I'm a brain surgeon.''

''I know,'' said the plumber said. ''That's all I charged when I was a brain surgeon.''